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MojoKid writes "Despite television being a rather tough nut to crack, Intel is apparently hoping that its upcoming set-top box and subscription service will be its golden ticket to delivering more Intel processors to the living room. The service would be a sort of specialized virtual cable subscription that would combine a bundle of channels with on demand content. So what's Intel's killer feature that distinguishes it from the vast and powerful competition? Granular ratings that result in targeted ads. Intel is promising technology in a set-top box that can distinguish who is watching, potentially allowing Intel to target advertising. The technology could potentially identify if the viewer is an adult or a child, male or female, and so on, through interactive features and face recognition technology."

You want to be "saved" from this technology? Then don't buy it in the first place! Nobody is twisting your arm. Intel Corp exists for one reason only: to make money. You don't give them money, they do something else. You don't want a camera in your living room watching everything you do (which is straight out of 1984 by the way) then don't buy anything that has that technology in it, damnit!

Really? So we're all forced by law to subscribe to these "walled gardens", or are jailed? Have our livelihoods taken from us? Or perhaps instead you're just another of the brainwashed masses who weren't raised to think for themselves, convinced that there's no reason to fight anything, no point in "going against the grain", instead just yielding to false peer-pressure? If so please sterilize yourself, we need fewer people like you in the gene pool.

It's worse than that. Imagine the enhanced DRM this would enable. "Sorry, We have detected more than the allotted number of audience members. Your account has been charged $9.99 per extra viewer."

There was a time when F.C.C. rules prevented cable operators from even being able to track what programs were watched. Should we track people to see what channel their watching. The wikidrips guy has a show on RT you know. Some might want to know whether you watch PBS or Fox, or those foreign news channels.

The tech should provide relief to any who find old malware problems boring. Expect that some will create websites with a bunch of video windows showing people watching tv. I bet some people would wr

Telescreens, Pravda, and assorted dictators' gigantic golden statues and peculiar cults of personality(while undoubtedly dramatic) have the convenient tendency to collapse under the weight of their own inefficiency.

I knew it, a Conspiracy!! Could you please tell us who's behind this, Oh Insightful One? Is it the Illuminati, I'll bet it is...with their fellow travelers, the Free Masons, trying to spackle over our freedoms. Don't forget to watch out for the black helicopters now that you are on to them.

They'll already have your grocery bills, whether they be through paying with a card or by using a "rebate" card, so they'll already know that it's you who buy cat food, so they will show the ads when you enter the room.

Oh, and that search you did for "pregnancy risk" the other day? Unencrypted through your cable modem, by the same provider as your cable TV? With a contract giving them a right to monitor all traffic? Expect to see a lot of diapers and baby food commercials for the next couple of years.

Welcome to Ayn Rand's world. Please take a seat (great couch cleaning service starting at $5.99) and relax.

You pay cash? How does that help you when RFIDs in your driver's license or face recognition scanners at the supermarket checkout line identify you as Mr. R Smith of 2341 Maple Lane?

Thats why I have the same ID that expired back in 1996.

Best part is, no one ever seems to have a problem that it's expired.

Plus, if you are worried about places reading RFID in ID, then don't carry the ID in the stores when you plan on paying cash. Leave it in the car, wrap it in foil, i don't know, i don't care. My ID is over 15 years old. lol.

In the US, your driver's license only has a chip if you've paid extra for an Enhanced DL, and they even typically give you a radio-shielding sleeve for those. And facial recognition is still terrible, especially for blind matching rather than verification. Stick to the loyalty and credit cards for your conspiracies, for now.

It's the values of laissez-faire and abhorring laws protecting the interests of individuals who are unable to protect them themselves.

When a majority of the population is apathetic and willing targets, you soon will have no choice but to buy TVs that monitor you. Just like the average DVD/BD unit these days calls the mothership and tells what movies you watch, and how you now buy cars with a black box that registers your driving.

Stop being an egotist who gloat that you are too "rational" to buy such a TV,

Lol lol lol. This has got to be the stupidest comment I have seen today. Most libertarians are at least smarter than this. The reason why such a corporation run distopia would be laissez-faire economic policy's fault is because we KNOW that people are as a rule stupid, petty and selfish. But somehow the objectivists think that these drives will somehow transmute through the power of the market into rainbows and sunshine. The reason why commerce has to be regulated is the same reason democracies need constit

Yes, but it will be more like a little light that wiggles around the screen, or a little bird in a cage, not the actual LSD-inspired cat food commercials that are usually targeted at their human owners.

The cats will also be able to miaow at the TV to trigger a credit card purchase and a delivery of cat food through the mail slot that next day. This functionality should save quite a bit of heart-hake the next time a cat owner dies and its cat has nothing to eat except for its owner's body.

some goodie will be presented. discounts or some motivator. it will be very cheap and laughable but people will sell their souls for bullshit token items. ever see a stampede at trade shows for the give-aways that are 'cool' ? same deal, here.

go to slickdeals (site) and watch how many people sign up for emailings from companies or will fill out lengthy forms to get a token piece of junk or a $10 discount on something. they'll give lots of info away and not even care. they'll justify it with 'but I'm getting this neat thing for free! its FREE. how can that be bad?'

that is a prevalent form of modern thinking. at least in the consumer age (20's 30's).

we already accept cameras at nearly every traffic light. in the UK, its more invasive than that. people tolerate loss of privacy.

I weep for us, because we value it so little and are quickly willing to sell it out for virtually nothing. once gone, its gone, too.

The younger crowd finds no value in it, or much worse, finds value in not having it.

It's youthful idealism and naivety that leads them to these conclusions. One simply needs some exposure to history to see the risks, and exposure to fields of study like game theory to understand why even a little loss in privacy can have dramatic detrimental affects for society as a whole.

The loss of privacy at this scale is quite unprecedented though. It is not all that sur

I think we will trade our privacy if it feels "abstract". With Facebook, we think "oh we are putting it out there anyway, who cares if coca cola learns whether or not I prefer dr pepper or mr pibbs?". If it comes down to "would you buy a tv set for less if you knew that tv set was WATCHING you", I think several factors would keep people from purchasing it. There are practical concerns about privacy, civil rights/liberties if law enforcement wants in, but beyond everything else: a truly deep "creepiness" fac

That's not the right question. The right question is how will anyone be able to avoid it?

With IPV6 now here, I can see the future now. Rupert Murdoch will appear on the screen of your alarm clock demanding that you must pay him 10% of your income or he's going to deflate the your tires on your car or shut off your refrigerator.

What? You didn't listen to the 7th straight hour of the Sean Hannity Inanity Program? We will be sending you a small jolt of electricity to your remote to cure you of your conditio

Since the late Steve Jobs announced how he had 'cracked' the 'television problem' every major electronics manufacturer is panicking, afraid to get behind or miss out on a lot of patents. These horrible systems are a direct result of Apple disrupting the TV market. Reality distortion is still very much alive.

I can imagine a family wanting the TV to, for example, only allow itself to be turned on (and only to certain channels) at certain times if an adult is not in the room. It might also be nice if when you sat down it showed the shows that you want that it's recorded, rather than the ones your partner might want to watch, or if you're both in the room for it to default to showing the intersection of your two sets of favourites. It would be nice if it could automatically pause itself if I stood up and resume

True. Yet another reason not to tolerate a set-top box. The only reason they really exist is to allow pay-per-view; there's probably no technical reason a descrambler couldn't be installed at the incoming source rather than on a per-set basis, except that the set-top setup makes you use their (usually awful) remote, allows pay-per-view, forces you to accept their ad-laden on-screen channel guide, runs about the shoddiest DVR interface you can think of, and conveniently costs you an extra $10 per month per d

So what does a hand with the middle finger only pointed straight up do, remote wise?

A) Skip to the next adB) Vote the ad down to improve ratingsC) Report you to the nearest business plan and marketing compliance association of america? (BPMCAA, formed by a merger of RIAA and MPAA?)D) All of the above.

Indeed: what's in it for the end users? It sounds both creepy and obnoxious, so if all they can expect in return for further lost privacy is targeted adds, what's to stop them from simply taping over the camera lens? Or, will the TV then give an error if it decides that the user has done just that?

I am 44 years old and I grew up with TV. None of my kids watch TV. I do not watch TV. Nobody I know watches TV. The TV is now just a screen in which content which is chosen by the person, at a time specified by the user, is displayed. Yeah, there are still people out there but that whole model of forced advertising is going away. The writing is on the wall.

I still watch TV. I admit I don't pay much attention to it. I just turn on some random channel (usually the antennaTV channel), but focus my attention on the internet screen. Only time I pay attention is if a classic Twilight Zone or Hitchcock episode appears.

...that whole model of forced advertising is going away. The writing is on the wall.

Yes as we get more affluent and rational we'll be less willing to trade our time watching ads for free or subsidised content, preferring instead to get relevant ads on-demand from search engines, or eschewing ads altogether and learning about things being sold from editorial content that unlike ads doesn't push an agenda by giving you less than the whole truth.

As it runs low on the fuel of poverty and irrationality that sustains it, advertising's currently passing through its bloated red giant stage. The

"The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. [...] The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard.[...] It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. "

Obviously he had a crude older set that was overdue for an upgrade. The modern ones can not only clearly hear you whisper in the next room, but also see around corners [nature.com] in the pitch dark thanks to the built-in IR laser illumination.

And thanks to the automated computer vision, voice recognition, and behavioral analysis systems that detect any potentially ungood tendencies, it takes only a handful of Party members to continuously protect everyone from their own destructive deviation from orthodoxy. Rejoice c

The whole point of that passage was to prove that paranoia drove the world in 1984. In fact that was the whole message of the book. Winston gave up because the system was self perpetuating. This is a loosely-similar idea that would be demolished the first time some horny IT guy figured out how to turn on little susie's camera in her bedroom. The inevitable outcome is set just like the charter school laptops from about a year ago. I know slashdot is obsessed with dystopian paranoia but history has told

I think I'm supposed to come back all frothing-at-the-mouth, but you make a solid point; we're not quite there yet. However, we are increasingly willingly allowing absolutely insane levels of our personal information to be tracked, collated, and traded around. It gets to be a slippery slope if the advertising data ever connects with the credit industry (Gee, Tommy, your credit score is pretty good right now. Here's an ad for a huge package-deal vacation you can finance with your very own credit card!).

As a member of a former Nielson ratings household, I can say that I always found it incredibly annoying always having to log into a set-top box whenever I turned on the television... plus I seem to recall having to periodically re-log in to the box every hour or so, if I was doing a TV marathon, just so that it would know we weren't just leaving the TV idle.

This is emblematic of what's wrong with the set-top box market. Except for the handful of CableCard third-party devices (e.g. Tivo), most set-top boxes are sold not to end users, but to cable companies. That means average quality is low, and the only "features" they care about are the ones that pad the cable company's profits. Cable boxes guzzle power like crazy (even when turned "off") and offer a poorer UI than almost any other modern electronic device, and now they're planning to invade your privacy as w

Even the tivo is loosely 'sold' to you. They inject advertising strings into the pause bar, and add ads above your My Shows feed. Im paying $20/month for a glorified electronic TV guide and for them to serve ads to me on hardware i 'own'.... I asked if i could have them turned off, and the rep told me those ads are there to 'keep the cost of the service down'

make a tv box that comes with a robot that takes up residence in your house, prying around your living room, watching you sleep, watching you shower and take a crap to find out as much about you as possible so bombard you with constant ads targeted entirely to you.

buy our crap! Buy Our Crap! BUY OUR CRAP! B_U_Y _ O_U_R _ C_R_A_P!

Warning! You haven't been paying attention to the ads! Further ad avoidance will result in cancelling your TV subscription!

In general, I think that Orwell did the mankind a great disservice when his own fear of Communists made his work focused on oppressive societies with Communist attributes. It created an impression that Communists are the only ones who oppress and brainwash people, and allowed Capitalist societies to safely develop far more powerful propaganda machines than Communists could ever think of, all the while proclaiming that they are paragons of free thought and action.

In general, I think that Orwell did the mankind a great disservice when his own fear of Communists made his work focused on oppressive societies with Communist attributes.

It wasn't unmotivated "fear". It was based on what Stalin was doing when Orwell wrote it. In any case, the word "communist" isn't in the book. It was just "The Party'. Orwell had recognised that dictatorships end up the same, whatever the philosophy they start with.

It wasn't unmotivated "fear". It was based on what Stalin was doing when Orwell wrote it.

It was not "unmotivated", it was "misdirected". In the same way how fear of black people is misdirected, even though there are plenty of violent criminals among black people.

In any case, the word "communist" isn't in the book. It was just "The Party'. Orwell had recognised that dictatorships end up the same, whatever the philosophy they start with.

Just like there is also not a single mentioning of the word "mafia" in The Godfather.Not only it's absolutely definitely was intended to refer to the society under Communist, or specifically Stalin rule, most Americans' idea of USSR is actually closer to Orwell's fiction than to reality.

It was not "unmotivated", it was "misdirected". In the same way how fear of black people is misdirected, even though there are plenty of violent criminals among black people.

Yeah, right. Thinking Stalinism was evil is the same as being a bigoted racist. Because most communist states were actually so nice and benevolent. Its only the exceptional ones, like USSR, Maoist China, North Korea, Romania, Albania, that gave all the the others a bad name.

My own politics are very liberal, in American terms, even socialist. But real communism is to be feared. They probably never were a threat to the US in the "Red Menace" way, but they certainly were to their own citizens.

Not only it's absolutely definitely was intended to refer to the society under Communist, or specifically Stalin rule, most Americans' idea of USSR is actually closer to Orwell's fiction than to reality.

Yeah, right. Thinking Stalinism was evil is the same as being a bigoted racist.

Stalin is one politician, harshly denounced by his successors. While he achieved iconic status, he is no more relevant to Communism than your local friendly bicycle thief to the rest of Black people.

Because most communist states were actually so nice and benevolent.

Actually, yes. Even among USSR leaders, Lenin (and most of his government) and Khruschev were definitely in the "benevolent" category, Brezhnev was more incompetent than evil, Andropov mostly deserves criticism for his actions outside USSR, and Gorbachev's worst action of his whole political career was causing d

Stalin is one politician, harshly denounced by his successors. While he achieved iconic status, he is no more relevant to Communism than your local friendly bicycle thief to the rest of Black people.

Stop this invocation of racism. It's insulting.

Stalin wasn't exceptional. Mao. Kim Il Sung. Pol Pot. Its hard to name a communist leader in power for a decade or more, who wasn't a paranoid tyrant who sent millions to labor camps, or just had them killed. Only after the leader is dead, the system has collapsed economically, do his successors dare to change his policies.

Orwell's works were kept unchallenged in European and American cultures, and were widely promoted for anti-Communist propaganda value.

Of course they were.But again, "1984" doesn't ONLY apply to communism. This article shows that it is still invoked, correctly, to point ou

Only Mao of them was actually Communist -- the rest at most paid lip service to some Communist ideas.

Its hard to name a communist leader in power for a decade or more, who wasn't a paranoid tyrant who sent millions to labor camps, or just had them killed. Only after the leader is dead, the system has collapsed economically, do his successors dare to change his policies.

This is completely baseless, and I have spent a significant amount of my time here debunking "USSR was all-Stalin for all its history" and "USSR collapsed economically" myths.

Of course they were.But again, "1984" doesn't ONLY apply to communism.

No, 1984 is specifically about Communists because it was specifically written about Communists.

This article shows that it is still invoked, correctly, to point out the implications of things in our own society.

Actually, no. While some things apply legitimately, the idea of being watched by a TV has nothing objectively frightening about it, not any m

Only Mao of them was actually Communist -- the rest at most paid lip service to some Communist ideas.

If you're going to redefine communism to leave out the ones you don't like, you're on the way to Newspeak yourself.

No, 1984 is specifically about Communists because it was specifically written about Communists.

Despite the word never appearing in it.

Orwell wasn't an idiot. He was writing about totalitarianism, not just communism. He probably felt sentimental about "real" communism, as you seem to. But he had seen where it goes in practice. Communism isn't the only route to totalitarianism. Nazi Germany, Czarist Russia, both did pretty well in that regard. East Germany seemed to switch over from one

If you're going to redefine communism to leave out the ones you don't like, you're on the way to Newspeak yourself.

Communism was defined by Marx, and I use his definition. Stalin was a Communist (though a rather crappy one), Pol Pot was not a Communist at all.

Orwell wasn't an idiot. He was writing about totalitarianism, not just communism.

"Totalitarianism" does not exist. It's a label people from one society give to another one because they can not believe, that other society can exist without someone constantly threatening to kill people if they will not obey that other society's rules. In reality, such a situation is impossible -- if anyone tried to do that, society would be completely dysfunction

I was hoping for facial recognition of the actors that appear on television. It would save a lot of time flipping through the channels; imagine being able to tell your TV which actors (or newscasters) you enjoy watching and have all their televised appearances recorded for you, even uncredited cameos. You could get Star Trek, TJ Hooker, Boston Legal and Priceline commercials with one request! Utopia!

I wonder if this has come out of Intel's acquision of Cognovision, and I hope it's better than what they gave developers in 2011. I worked with this product for about a year, attempting to integrate it into our digital signage systems. Not only did it take a dedicated i5 with 2gb of RAM to safely run in the background, it often (as much as 40% of the time) produced the wrong information about a person. Gender was correct about 80% of the time, age was correct in only about 30% of samples, and race was almost never correct (except for very dark skinned folks were alwas called determined to be of African origin).

The result was that we had to write an algorythm to essentially average out samples over a given duration. When we took 500 samples over 5 seconds, dropped the extremes, and averaged the rest we improved the accuracy to nearly 85%, but that is still pretty bad when you consider that automated actions will be taken based on those results (i.e. to play content for YOUR demographic).

I splash my personal browsing habits and general information all over the web (I don't even log out of FB most of the time) yet I have never been aware of anything other than random, pathetically irrelevant ads. Right now, for instance, I have my Gmail open in another tab and I'm looking at a automated mail from Spotify that says "Anna just joined Spotify" - Anna is a friend of mine. Now, what Adsense do you think the mighty Google might be selecting, given that it knows lots and lots about me, and reads al

I can see it now... Mom, Dad, are watching TV in the Den. Little Susie comes in, and the next set of commercials include a "My Little Pony" advert. In walks Junior, and up pops an ad for adult videos and Jergens.

Or Wifie is watching TV (with ads for feminine products). In walks Hubby, and the next commercial is for divorce lawyers. Screaming commences.

I'd pay handsomely for a TV (or more accurately, a content service) that lets me view what I want, when I want, without any damn ads thanks. But pay extra for a box that puts a camera in my living room, the better to serve me ads?! Seriously, who came up with this?

"Hmmm... there's noone watching... for the sake of you energy bills, I'll be shutting myself off."

If you want privacy, visit our accredited psychologists and buy the set of masks most suitable with you and your family members' personality, we'd be happy to quickly recognize your character with less computational effort.

You probably won't have a choice. The advertisers and corporations and republicans will demand that all sets be equipped with them to be sure that you are not paling around with terrorists. Turn off the TV and the Hillsborough Baptist Church will picket your house and place you on a pervert list.